Junior Psychology Class Choose President Roosevelt As More Intelligent Than Present Foreign Dictators (Vol. 3, Issue 19)
President Roosevelt is far superior in intelligence to the present dictators of Europe, in the opinion of members of the Junior class as gathered from an experiment conducted by Dr. Saul. B. Sells in the educational psychology class Monday afternoon.
In an endeavor to discover the influence of social contact on individual opinion, the students were required to rate the intelligence of six leaders in current world affairs on a scale ranging from one to nine with one representing the highest rating. In addition to President Roosevelt the prominent figures included the two fascist leaders Mussolini and Hitler, Prime Minister Chamberlain of Great Britain, Joseph Stalin, and Henry Ford.
The President was far ahead in the choice for the highest rating, receiving ten votes to three for his nearest opponents. No member of the class considered the chief executive below the third interval.
The overwhelming condemnations of the fascist dictators by the students of Yeshiva College as witnessed by former questionnaires did not restrain several tudents from rating Hitler and Mussolini as having superior intellectual ability. On these two men the greatest difference of opinion occurred with the rating covering the entire range.
That Ford does not possess higher than average intelligence is the predominant opinion of the members of the class, while Stalin fared but little better. This experiment was successful insofar as it definitely proved that social pressure of one half of the class effected a relative change of opinion on the other half. The experiment commenced with half of the class rating these contestants by a secret ballot. Verbal votes of condemnation of the dictators and exaltation of Pres. Roosevelt were then voiced by the other half. When the first group was asked to vote verbally, it was discovered that the social pressure of the second half, of the class had caused a change in the original stand.
